I would First send a message ..warning shot
Welfare, Social Security and Medicaid/Medicare ............. fruad is now over and the shit will hit the fan...

Second thing is illegals : If we can get those people off the books and out of this country big money ..... warning shot
30 day to sign up for citizenship ....31 day to get the hell out of my country

Then look at additional cost cutting:
Pork, earmarks, etc., Federal payroll freeze, Educational,

No one for paying down the national debt? I'm all for balancing the budget, but we have to get rid of this crippling debt. Paying over 500+ billion on interest is a killer.

jmog;545091 wrote:Taxed less than under Clinton, yes. Taxed less than under Bush, no.

Just because people are making less money now than under Bush and therefore they have possibly dropped to lower tax brackets, that does NOT mean that the tax liabilities per income level have dropped since Bush.

Don't twist the facts, especially once ObamaKare starts to take affect, those "penalties" and "fees" which are really taxes, will make us taxed MORE than under Bush.

How did I twist any facts? Have federal income tax rates gone up on anyone since Obammy took office? Didn't the MWP credit start in 09? Obama can't control how much you make...

tk421;545107 wrote:No one for paying down the national debt? I'm all for balancing the budget, but we have to get rid of this crippling debt. Paying over 500+ billion on interest is a killer.

You have to find the revenue before you can do this. What we're talking about is not only balancing the budget, but ultimately getting the funds to cut the deficit.

Yeah, but you'll have to find revenue for over a decade or more consistently in order to pay off the debt. Anyone want to bet me the odds of anyone in D.C. not only balancing the budget but having a surplus to pay down the debt for an entire decade? Yeah, I didn't think so.

I Wear Pants;544861 wrote:No. But he did start two wars, increase our spending on social programs, create a terrible education bill, and craft one of the most direct attacts on our privacy with the Patriot Act. But he cut taxes so all that's okay.

Bush wasn't Hitler or close to Hitler and neither is Obama. Hitler was Hitler.

LOL! It's back to school for BGFalcons!

The good news is that once the economy turns around, people will have jobs again.

The bad news, is that we are sitting on a ticking time bomb of explosion in interest rate payments on the debt the second there is a hint of positive economic activity and rates start moving up.

I am interested to see what the proposed budgets look like, because if Republicans really did offer a balanced budget the Democrats will have a wave election of their own in 2012.

The American people are clueless on just what the financial situation in this country is like right now as far as the budget goes.

To actually cut $1.3 trillion dollars in spending to balance the budget per year would mean cuts across the board on a scale the likes of which this country has never experienced. There would be rioting in the streets when people realized what that kind of cut in spending actually looks like in practice.

We are going to quickly have a come to Jesus moment though, because either those cuts are going to happen (and the political fallout that comes with them) or taxes are goign to have to go up significantly to actually pay for that level of spending (and it will be a lot bigger than just letting the Bush tax cuts for everyone expire).

I heard Tea Party candidates (who are supposed to be our salvation on spending) on election night saying that they want to cut spending, just not Defense, SS or Medicare/Medicaid.

Reason being, cutting any of those will be so politically toxic no one wants to touch it or go on record as being for it. Well, if that is the case, we are going to be having wave elections every 2 years because neither party wants to raise taxes across the board, or cut spending that people are really going to feel (which is the only way the budget can be balanced).

Saying you want to cut waste, fraud, pork spending, foreign aid and discretionary spending makes for great campaign rhetoric. The problem though is that cutting those alone leaves you with a $1+ trillion dollar deficit.

You've promised your constituents you are going to balance the budget without raising taxes, or cutting their S.S, Medicare/Medicaid or defense spending.

Any way you look the numbers just don't add up, and that is why I can't wait to see how a budget is ever going to be signed when there is no way to square the political promises made (by both sides) with the reality of the arithmetic.

^^^ I was thinking the same thing on election night watching people skirt the questions on what they actually would cut - "discretionary spending...yadayadayada" and when asked how about defense or entitlements "no"

That's what I said above. There is no way possible that the debt will ever be paid down. Politicians don't have the balls and the public would vote them out immediately the minute a government service they liked was cut. We might as well get used to the fact that this country is heading towards bankruptcy. I don't even think significantly raising the tax rates across the board, not just on the 2% highest earners, would have any effect because you know the minute D.C. gets more revenue, they are going to spend it.

I personally would eliminate almost every single federal program except Social Security and Medicare (until we can figure out the best way to move those to the private sector) and defense. I would also cut defense spending by at least 25%, closing down at least a quarter of our overseas bases. The FDA could stick around in a very limited form. The Justice Department would be kept to start enforcing anti-trust regulations. Pretty much everything else would go.

Belly35;545101 wrote:I would First send a message ..warning shot
Welfare, Social Security and Medicaid/Medicare ............. fruad is now over and the shit will hit the fan...

Second thing is illegals : If we can get those people off the books and out of this country big money ..... warning shot
30 day to sign up for citizenship ....31 day to get the hell out of my country

Then look at additional cost cutting:
Pork, earmarks, etc., Federal payroll freeze, Educational,

Defense?

1) Cut the size of the federal workforce by 10%. Need to run this thing like a business....when revenue is down you cut your largest expense which is labor.
2) Reduce foreign aid
3) Raise SS retirement age to 70+
4) Eliminate the sweet deals congress gets for retirement, plus the STRS/PERS. Everyone pays into SS and all citizens receive the same package.
5) Eliminate baseline budget increases for every item in the budget.
6) All illegals receive nothing in assistance....you're breaking the law, so you get nothing.

Mr. 300;545397 wrote:1) Cut the size of the federal workforce by 10%. Need to run this thing like a business....when revenue is down you cut your largest expense which is labor.
2) Reduce foreign aid
3) Raise SS retirement age to 70+
4) Eliminate the sweet deals congress gets for retirement, plus the STRS/PERS. Everyone pays into SS and all citizens receive the same package.
5) Eliminate baseline budget increases for every item in the budget.
6) All illegals receive nothing in assistance....you're breaking the law, so you get nothing.

Not a bad start. That should shave maybe $200+ billion off the deficit.

Only another $1+ trillion more in cuts and we are home free.

I was thinking about the debt tonight when answering one of these threads, and does it make anyone else cringe when you think about the fact we have nothing tangible really to show for our $14 trillion in debt?

It would be one thing if we could at least like look around and see stuff we built with it, but it was all just piddled away. That is such a massive amount of money that it could have totally changed the way this country looks right now had it been properly invested (not that I think we should have spent it, just saying if it was going to be spent anyway that there had to be more productive uses for it).

Only in America though I guess could we see one of the greatest economic expansions the world has ever seen the past 30 years, and managed to not only rack up that kind of debt but have little to show for it. It is kind of like going to fancy restaurants every night to eat dinner, and at the end of the month getting your credit card bill for a couple thousand dollars (that you couldn't afford) only to have the joy of looking at your toilet knowing that is where the money went at the end of every day when nature called.

I agree Iggy. I mean, how have we spent so much and yet still have what, 80% was the number I think, of our country's bridges in disrepair.

1. Withdraw military presence in Europe.
2. Wind down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
3. Implement fair, verifiable bidding in DoD spending
4. Incremental raise in SS retirement age to 70
5. Cap Medicare/Medicaid temporarily
6. Eliminate the Department of Education. Education is a LOCAL issue...not a Federal one.
7. Eliminate earmarks
8. Evaluate and re-align Federal employee benefit packages to be comparable to the private sector
9. Make all public sector employees including Congress participate in SS rather than the far more lucrative public employee systems
10. Cut foreign aid
11. Re-evaluate military strategies under current conditions. Consolidate redundancies and go lean & mean
12. Repeal ObamaKare
13. Freeze Federal spending across-the-board
14. Freeze Federal pay raises
15. Presidential line-item veto
16. Eliminate unnecessary Federal patronage jobs
17. No more Federal bailout's of banks and private business. If they fail, they fail
18. Cut manned space light. Concentrate on unmanned improvements to national security, communications, etc.
19. Defer space exploration to the private sector
20. Eliminate NOAA and rely on private seismic, climatological and weather sources
21. True welfare reform. Implement workfare. Provide reasonable child care subsidies, implement Food Stamp caps, etc. Stop rewarding welfare recipients for having more children. Cap benefits to no more than 2 children.
22. Look for redundancies in Federal agencies, consolidate, and reduce head count. For example is it necessary to have both a CIA and a National Security Agency?
23. Reduce agricultural subsidies. STOP paying farmers NOT to farm. Farming should be subject to the market place...the law of supply & demand.

....but wait...there's more!

I disagree with 19 and 20. 19 more than 20 though. Space is too important to essentially give up and I don't believe it's to the point where any private enterprise could afford/would make any real progress in the area.

derek bomar;545108 wrote:How did I twist any facts? Have federal income tax rates gone up on anyone since Obammy took office? Didn't the MWP credit start in 09? Obama can't control how much you make...

You twisted the facts by insinuating that Obama lowered our taxes when the ONLY reason the total tax has went down is due to people making less money, not because of anything Obama has done since Bush.

believer;545542 wrote:1. Withdraw military presence in Europe.
2. Wind down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
3. Implement fair, verifiable bidding in DoD spending
4. Incremental raise in SS retirement age to 70
5. Cap Medicare/Medicaid temporarily
6. Eliminate the Department of Education. Education is a LOCAL issue...not a Federal one.
7. Eliminate earmarks
8. Evaluate and re-align Federal employee benefit packages to be comparable to the private sector
9. Make all public sector employees including Congress participate in SS rather than the far more lucrative public employee systems
10. Cut foreign aid
11. Re-evaluate military strategies under current conditions. Consolidate redundancies and go lean & mean
12. Repeal ObamaKare
13. Freeze Federal spending across-the-board
14. Freeze Federal pay raises
15. Presidential line-item veto
16. Eliminate unnecessary Federal patronage jobs
17. No more Federal bailout's of banks and private business. If they fail, they fail
18. Cut manned space light. Concentrate on unmanned improvements to national security, communications, etc.
19. Defer space exploration to the private sector
20. Eliminate NOAA and rely on private seismic, climatological and weather sources
21. True welfare reform. Implement workfare. Provide reasonable child care subsidies, implement Food Stamp caps, etc. Stop rewarding welfare recipients for having more children. Cap benefits to no more than 2 children.
22. Look for redundancies in Federal agencies, consolidate, and reduce head count. For example is it necessary to have both a CIA and a National Security Agency?
23. Reduce agricultural subsidies. STOP paying farmers NOT to farm. Farming should be subject to the market place...the law of supply & demand.

....but wait...there's more!

I agree with about everyone but the space one.

However, its time NASA was only doing space "science" and stop doing research on global warming (yes, NASA spends a ton on AGW) and other research that has zero to do with space exploration. I wouldn't cut NASA's budget, just make 100% of their budget go to space related activities.

The other thing I would mandate, is that the Medicare/Medicaid and SS have balanced "budgets" of their own. Right now the extra taxes we pay into these do not cover what is spent. Right now we only pay about 900 billion into SS/Medicare/Medicaid out of our checks, and the government spends $1.3 trillion. That needs fixed.

Then I most certainly would cut the defense budget by having a better defense contractor bid system, less protection for other countries, slowly get us out of the 2 wars, and realign our forces to protect our own borders through physical troops and intelligence.

What no one wants to talk about, is the fact that in order to really lower spending, you have to attack the "big 3" Defense, SS, and Medicare/Medicaid, they are the 3 biggest spenders in our budget.

I would be ok with tax increases if they come AFTER the budget has been balanced by cutting spending, then we can raise taxes some to actually pay DOWN some debt.

I'd start with Social Security. No one receives money out of the Social Security Trust Fund unless they paid into it. Period.

Defense needs to be cut into as well...close bases and focus more on advanced technology for warfare.

Foreign Aid would be pretty much gone except for real disasters.

Cut the salaries and benefits of government workers....elected and non elected.

You wanna change this country? Don't allow reelection. Maybe lengthen the terms (if you need to) but don't allow reelection, or don't allow consecutive terms. Once a politician gains office, their only concern (hard to disagree with here) is getting reelected.

ernest_t_bass;545641 wrote:You wanna change this country? Don't allow reelection. Maybe lengthen the terms (if you need to) but don't allow reelection, or don't allow consecutive terms. Once a politician gains office, their only concern (hard to disagree with here) is getting reelected.

+1. I'd be OK with term limits at the same election frequency as the POTUS (2 terms max for reps and senators) as well.

For those against lobbyists and potential sources of foreign influence, this would have a serious impact on how much they peddle their influence.

BGFalcons82;545647 wrote:+1. I'd be OK with term limits at the same election frequency as the POTUS (2 terms max for reps and senators) as well.

For those against lobbyists and potential sources of foreign influence, this would have a serious impact on how much they peddle their influence.

I don't even think the POTUS should get two consecutive terms. Give them a 4-6 year term, where not even ONCE do they think about reelection, and make them act NOW on the things they said they would do. You take away reelection, I think more politicians actually worry about putting a positive "stamp" on history, leaving their legacy.

ernest_t_bass;545641 wrote:You wanna change this country? Don't allow reelection. Maybe lengthen the terms (if you need to) but don't allow reelection, or don't allow consecutive terms. Once a politician gains office, their only concern (hard to disagree with here) is getting reelected.

I totally agree! I say one 6 year term for everyone...if you can't get what you want to accomplish done in 6 years, then it wasn't a good idea anyways.

ManO'War;545651 wrote:I totally agree! I say one 6 year term for everyone...if you can't get what you want to accomplish done in 6 years, then it wasn't a good idea anyways.

If you do allow reelection, I'd like to see it be non-consecutive. Make a president (or any politician) sit back and watch someone else do their old job, and perhaps they would learn more. I GUARANTEE that every single president (once out of office) looks out how things are running and have learnt a thing or two.